Structurally informed generative modelling of brain network dynamics

This thesis examines how brain structure constrains function. It develops modelling frameworks that leverage structural connectivity—the brain’s large-scale white-matter wiring—to estimate effective connectivity: the directed influence that one neuronal population exerts on another. These approaches are tested using simulations and non-invasive MRI data from humans, macaques, marmosets, and mice. Together, the methods developed in this thesis support valid, reliable, and mechanistically interpretable inference about directed neuronal communication, and provide practical tools that can be applied across behavioural and pharmacological conditions, and across species.